Live data from Hacker News

Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

wired.com

531–540 of 964 posts

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#531
post #516

I don't understand this fetishism with centrism and all opinions being treated equally, and that having made up your mind on an issue is necessarily wrong. When it comes to an issue like, say, climate change, I spent years reading the blogosphere, reading blogs like WUWT and whatever Judith Curry would come up with, and then the rebuttals, sometimes waiting years for the science to come out. For any issue around clim…

Why mention Joe Rogan viewers...?

Because Joe Rogan has a habit of hosting individuals who are blatant frauds and plays it off as "representing both sides". When you have Alex Jones on and let him spew outright lies for an hour without questioning any of it, you've lost all credibility.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#532
post #8

I tried this experiment: read nytimes, wapo, fox, national review and politico. I wanted to get different perspectives. However, I encountered a bunch of issues: They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives. This is the most common form of bias I've come across. In the rare case they do cover the same thing, many articles either simply do not…

> They dont talk about or even cover the same things Yeah, this is a key thing to realize. People seem to think that Fox News, for example, just trots out falsehoods all the time, but if you skim the news, I'd say very little is actually factually incorrect. It's more about the story selection, who they choose to interview to get the quote, how they contextualize (or don't) statistics, etc. But once you realize that,…

Here's another example:

The google vs DuckDuckGo search results for the same exact phrase "list of conservatives banned by twitter" yield utterly different results. None of the admittedly right wing websites are even listed in the google results for that search. The only site in common on the first page is Forbes, but even then the two articles are different even though they came out the same exact day.

If you use google, you'd think that twitter isn't censoring conservatives. If you use duckduckgo, you'll think that they do.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#533
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COM Library has a ranking system for news organizations that seems to line up pretty well with my personal observations [0]. They show CNN as centrist but left-leaning. This agrees with my personal experience, except for news stories in the "woke" category, where CNN seems to skew far left. [0] https://libguides.com.edu/c.php?g=649909&p=4556556

> This agrees with my personal experience, except for news stories in the "woke" category, where CNN seems to skew far left. You do realize that “woke” as a pejorative originated in left-wing criticism of bourgeois, centrist identity politics? So, unless you are saying that CNN has joined that leftist critique, I think what you really probably mean is that CNN represents a strongly-held centrist position in that area…

The recuperation of leftist language critiquing capitalist politics as pejorative to anti-capitalist is a sight to behold.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#534
post #8

I tried this experiment: read nytimes, wapo, fox, national review and politico. I wanted to get different perspectives. However, I encountered a bunch of issues: They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives. This is the most common form of bias I've come across. In the rare case they do cover the same thing, many articles either simply do not…

> They dont talk about or even cover the same things, which makes it hard to compare liberal vs conservative perspectives I remember seeing Twitter chatter from the right re: the Fauci email dump, and so I went on various liberal outlets to try to get the left-wing perspective, and it was complete crickets. Especially when it's something I can't just read and form an opinion on myself (Fauci's email dump was absolute…

"And it's really hard to get a straight take when one side won't even bother to write a "this is a nothingburger, here's why" article. "

Gets tiring responding to the rights lies.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#535
post #516

I don't understand this fetishism with centrism and all opinions being treated equally, and that having made up your mind on an issue is necessarily wrong. When it comes to an issue like, say, climate change, I spent years reading the blogosphere, reading blogs like WUWT and whatever Judith Curry would come up with, and then the rebuttals, sometimes waiting years for the science to come out. For any issue around clim…

Why mention Joe Rogan viewers...?

I think because Joe Rogan-ites tend to be "apolitical" in a very specific way (at least in my personal experience). They are fundamentally different from the hippies, but still believe in sampling many opinions

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#537
post #531
post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why mention Joe Rogan viewers...?

Because Joe Rogan has a habit of hosting individuals who are blatant frauds and plays it off as "representing both sides". When you have Alex Jones on and let him spew outright lies for an hour without questioning any of it, you've lost all credibility.

have you seen last podcast? he questions a lot of Alex' stuff. Further are the three AJs podcasts great entertainment

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#538
post #516

I don't understand this fetishism with centrism and all opinions being treated equally, and that having made up your mind on an issue is necessarily wrong. When it comes to an issue like, say, climate change, I spent years reading the blogosphere, reading blogs like WUWT and whatever Judith Curry would come up with, and then the rebuttals, sometimes waiting years for the science to come out. For any issue around clim…

Why mention Joe Rogan viewers...?

Because he has a tendency to be misinformed and spread that misinformation.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, sure, but why are we talking about Fox specifically? CNN, MSNBC, etc. are just as bad. I find this ironic since this thread is about how bias isn't necessarily about outright falsehoods, but story selection and what is not said :)

Jonathan Haidt (who is mentioned in the article) did a study years ago. He separated a group of people into conservatives and liberals and then gave them a questionnaire on politics. Then he got a second group, separated them, and gave them the same questionnaire. Only he asked the second group of liberals and conservatives to answer the questionnaire the way they imagined the other side would. What he found was that…

I'm reading the article you linked down thread and after an initial skim I am not confident the article actually makes the point you are claiming.

Re: Some Americans are breaking out of political echo chambers

#540

I don't understand this fetishism with centrism and all opinions being treated equally, and that having made up your mind on an issue is necessarily wrong. When it comes to an issue like, say, climate change, I spent years reading the blogosphere, reading blogs like WUWT and whatever Judith Curry would come up with, and then the rebuttals, sometimes waiting years for the science to come out. For any issue around clim…

Yes. I'm reminded of the woman who had survived the Holocaust and was asked to be interviewed — where they would also bring on a Holocaust denier ... you know, for balance.

Thankfully, she declined. But the point is of course: here we are.

Post reply on HN